Bartolomeo Cavaceppi

Bartolomeo Cavaceppi (c. 1716 – December 9, 1799) was an Italian sculptor who worked in Rome, where he trained in the studio of the acclimatized Frenchman, Pierre-Étienne Monnot, and then in the workshop of Carlo Antonio Napolioni,[1] a restorer of sculptures for Cardinal Alessandro Albani, who was to become a major patron of Cavaceppi, and a purveyer of antiquities and copies on his own account.

[3] Winckelmann's influence and Cardinal Albani's own evolving taste may have contributed to Cavaceppi's increased self-consciousness of the appropriateness of restorations[4] — a field in which earlier sculptors had improvised broadly — evinced in his introductory essay to his Raccolta d'antiche statue, busti, teste cognite ed altre sculture antiche restaurate da Cav.

[7] Only in the nineteenth century, would collectors begin for the first time to appreciate fragments of sculpture: a headless torso was not easily sold in eighteenth-century Rome.

In the competition for a permanent marble of Saint Norbert for the last available niche in St. Peter's Basilica, Cavaceppi, the candidate favoured by Cardinal Albani, lost out in the end to the more conservative declamatory Baroque manner of Pietro Bracci, who received the commission.

Cavaceppi's studio, staffed with a host of assistants, was a stop for all the young connoisseurs making the Grand Tour.